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Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Is the Buddha's EMPTINESS the Brahmin's BRAHMAN?

In the high Hindu Vedanta teachings, the goal of the spiritual path is the realization of one's ultimate identity with Brahman, the Absolute, which is said to underlie all existence. Brahman, the indivisible, eternal, uncreated, is also called "the Deathless"—that place beyond birth and death, beyond the world.

Gautama the Buddha was acclaimed as a challenger and radical reformer of the decaying Brahminism of his time. One of the revolutionary ideas that he taught was the doctrine of Emptiness, said to be the cornerstone of Buddhist understanding. What he meant by Emptiness has been over the ages a source of much debate (even the close disciples of Buddha didn't understand it properly). Is Emptiness, as many believe it to be, a radical departure from the concept of the all-pervading eternal Brahman of the Vedas, or is Emptiness the Buddha's description of what is, in essence, none other than the Vedantic Brahman?